Seventy Percent
Processing the realization that I am earning a C- on life.
Look at me phoning in this illustration…
I’ve been focusing on financial goals lately.
I don’t know if that’s just me, always having an obsession and this is my latest, or if that’s typical for all of us in our early forties realizing that oh, boy, we have to put kids through college and retire and somewhere in there we will probably need a new roof or car or something.
And… can we take four kids to Disney World? Is that even in the realm of possible?
So, to torment myself, I benchmark. How much should we have saved by now for this? For that? For the other thing?
If child X is 10, how much should be in their 529? If child Y is 6, how much should we have stocked up for their inevitable braces? How much does a family of six spend on average for a Disney trip? (Answer to that last one: Twelve gazillion dollars.)
In my benchmark sojourns, I’m learning two things: 1) We’re not meeting any of the ambiguous markers of success. 2) We’re doing something, so we’re doing great.
With the new school year upon us, we’ve been bombarded with requests:
Read to your child for 20 minutes every evening.
Practice multiplication tables/letters/spelling every evening
Send your child to class with two healthy snacks and a water bottle
Obviously, all of these are super reasonable should-dos. We should read to the kids! And practice math facts! And feed them! We should feed them!
Why does it feel so monumental?
We read sometimes to some of the kids. We have a placemat floating around with times tables written on it. They know where to find chips and granola bars each morning. We’re not meeting the standard. But we’re doing something. So that’s great?
It seems to me that we tend to land around 70% of any given goal. If an average family should do X amount for Y thing, we hit around .7X. We either make it to seven out of every ten swim practices, or attend them all 10 minutes late. Or maybe the yard is mowed and our garage is clean but there are thirteen baskets of laundry. Look closely at our four lovely children, and they’re either all just a little overdue for a bath, or three are sparkling clean and one is Pigpen from Peanuts. Same goes for the rooms in our house.
Women my age should exercise 150 minutes per week? We should lift heavy weights? I’ll hit 100 minutes and lift, shall we say, heavyish.
But I exercise! I’m doing great!
I’m not a perfectionist. Ask my family about the cupboards and drawers that always hang open or pack for trips (answer to that last one: in twelve gazillion overstuffed tote bags). But I sure do like closing the circles on my watch. I do like getting As on my report cards. I like hitting goals, so this 70 percent nonsense is frustrating.
Do you know what letter grade seventy percent is? It’s a C-. A C-MINUS. I am essentially getting a C- ON LIFE.
This is highly disconcerting for my honors-student soul.
And yet, honestly, I feel like I’m doing great.
There’s too much. There’s too much to do. There are too many classes in the curriculum of parenting. Add a little extra credit for the number of kids and the fact that I haven’t actually failed at any of it (yet)? Heck yeah, I’ll take that grade on a curve.
I struggled to write this. I haven’t gotten it to where I want it. I haven’t posted it as speedily as I wanted. It’s probably about 70% of where I want my essays – so deep, so thoughtful – to land. I’d grade it a C-.
Good enough, for now.
